Trip to Spain

Over the half term break in October, we went to Valencia, Spain.  We had heard great things about Valencia and were hopeful that it was going to be warm.  We picked the kids up from school around 1:00 and headed to the airport via the train.  We arrived the suggested 2 hours before departure, and had a LOT of time, but it was ok because it meant that we could sit down and enjoy a nice meal. The girls also had a great time in the duty free trying on jewelry!

Rings on every finger...killing time in the duty-free shop

The flight was uneventful and we arrived in Valencia around 9:30 PM local time.  A driver met us and took us to our flat.

The flat was in Rufasa, and the owner met us to give us a tour and show us how everything works.  She was so nice, and we could tell she was really proud of her flat, as she should be!  It was BEAUTIFUL!  It was on the top floor of a 5 story building, with 5 balconies (or 100 according to Lauren), which were so nice.  It was the perfect space: Drew had his own room, the girls had their room, and Brad & I had our room. And there was ample storage.  The kids turned on the TV and "ET" was on, so they enjoyed watching that (although Alison fell asleep about 10 minutes after sitting down!)

Saturday was a beautiful day; I walked over to the market, which was literally around the corner from the flat and was SO amazed at the place!  WOW!!!  Meat, cheese, fruits, vegetables, olives, bread, candy....so many different stalls, it was overwhelming.  I purchased chicken, chorizo, ham, cheese, fruits, veggies....so much to carry that I had to drop all the stuff at the flat before I could go the supermarket to buy staples.  The strangest thing about the supermarket was that the milk was not refrigerated.  And once I got it home, Drew didn't want to drink it anyways!

After lunch, we headed off the find the beach.  It was a bit of a walk to the train station, but once we arrived to the place to get on the train, there was a HUGE park with climbing ropes, so we stopped there for quite a bit; the kids loved it!  Lauren met the only other English-speaking person at the park and her name was Lauren as well.  We hopped on the train and we were off to the beach!  It was not exactly a great beach day, but the kids had a great time digging in the sand for about an hour; Alison collected a bag full of shells.

The beach was HUGE

 Brad and I hadn't really eaten all day, so we found a place on the beach to eat (after admiring this amazing sand castle!).  Lauren and Drew had pasta and Alison had potatoes bravas and Brad and I shared paella that is made "in the moment," so it took a bit but it was cool to sit right on the beach!

Sunday, it was another kind of cloudy day, but we decided to go to the Gulliver Park, which is a park where there is a structure that is meant to be Gulliver from Gulliver's Travels.  It is quite clever how they made the slides and everything and there was lots of climbing as well.

The kids loved having breakfast on the patio

This model shows the creativity of this park

sitting in the sleeve ruffle

The kids also enjoyed playing in the rocks on his "hat."  We got some ice cream and then walked around old Valencia a bit.  There is a beautiful Cathedral, as well as several beautiful museums.  I made my own Paella for dinner,

and Brad said I earned the name "Jessicacita" for the rest of the trip.  I think it was better than the paella at the restaurant the day before, and I thought I was buying tomatoes, but they were actually persimmons (oops!), so thankfully I had some jarred tomato sauce to use instead.  The rice was locally grown and the chorizo was AMAZING!!

Monday, we headed to the aquarium, which is the largest aquarium in Europe!  It is different than most aquariums because it is made up of several different buildings and you walk between them outside.  The first thing we did was head to the dolphin show, which was AMAZING!

We were walking down the street and I turned around and Drew was shirtless!

 The kids were amazed at all the tricks the dolphins could do: flips, splashing, jumping over ropes.  We also saw sharks, jellyfish, seahorses, stingrays and lots and lots of fish of course!  There were several different tunnels where the fish were swimming above and all around us, which was pretty cool.  And we got to see some scuba divers feeding the stingrays.  Alison took at least 50 pictures of fish on my phone, she was so excited by all of them.  We tried to go back to the Gulliver's park and rent bikes, but they are only open on the weekends, so instead we walked back to the ropes park.  And along the way, we came across several areas with bars and things for climbing; Alison was of course so excited to find some monkey bars.  An elderly gentleman walked by as she was trying to get up by herself and he thought she was too short, but she showed him as she went across them all with no problem!!  And he gave her a book, but it is in Spanish!!

Tuesday was finally a sunny day so we headed to the beach!!

We spent about 3 hours at the beach, it was perfect!  The kids built a sand city; the girls did about a thousand cartwheels and went in the water; and Drew had the best time playing with is mini cars in the sand.   The funniest thing was this guy who was walking around on the beach trying to sell drinks and crisps and he was singing this song "Coca-Cola Normal, Coca-Cola Light, Coca-Cola Zero."  There were all sorts of people selling things: beer, blankets, even foot massages!!

Wednesday was our last day, and the owner of the flat was kind enough to let us keep our luggage in the flat until 5 PM, since our flight was not until later in the evening.  We decided to go to the science museum, which is in the same area as the Aquarium.  It was very cool.  There was also a tennis tournament going on inside the building at the same time that we could see from the upper floors of the museum.  They had an entire floor dedicated to interactive exhibits about the human body.  The coolest thing was where you stand on this scale, and it shows the amount of water that is in your body.  The kids all thought that was pretty cool.

 There was also an incubator where chicks were hatching; I think we JUST missed a chick hatching.  The highlight however was a kids area where they spent the last hour.  They had an entire construction site where they were moving the blocks around, stacking them, using a pulley.  It was very cool; and Lauren made a friend of course!  And she said "She's speaking to me in Spanish, but that's ok."  (Although she was actually speaking to her in German!  HA!)

We got back to collect our luggage, and we ran into a problem.  Pretty much ALL the restaurants close between 4:30 and 8:00.  So, we had our luggage and no place to go grab a bite to eat.  We did find a bar where we could a few drinks, and I had lots of snacks for the kids so we didn't have to spend so much time at the airport.  The airport was not very busy on a Wednesday evening, but we had to wait for the bag drop to open, so we checked our bags and then we were off to get some dinner.  We hired a car to bring us home, and we arrived home around 12:30!  All 3 kids fell asleep in the car on the way home; thankfully we didn't have to go anywhere the next day!!

Here are the main things I will remember about Spain:
-the girls doing cartwheels everywhere (beach, train station, outside)
-playing Spite and Malice with Alison
-fresh squeezed OJ
-the markets
-the dolphin show at the Aquarium
-the beach was HUGE
-the guy singing his Coca-Cola song
-Drew playing with his mini cars on the beach and almost losing Funny Car Mater
-sitting on the balcony to eat meals

All in all, a great family vacation with relaxing and also some museums!  And great food; the markets were amazing!!!!